‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Help yourself.’
‘You’re Canadian, aren’t you? I can tell from your accent.’
I tried not to make my smile too weary. ‘Yes. I am.’
‘Pleasure to meet you. The name’s Powell… Sam Powell.’ He extended a tanned hand across the table. Tans weren’t something you saw a lot of in Scotland. I shook it. Powell radiated an irrepressibly cheerful disposition. His big smile exposed perfect teeth and he had the big-amiable-lug-type handsomeness of the actor Fred MacMurray. The dislike I took to him was as profound as it was instant. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada myself,’ he explained with an eagerness that was as unstoppable as a runaway freight train. ‘Tractors are my business. The company I work for is Anglo-Canadian. I’m in sales.’
‘I see,’ I said. The waitress came over to take his order. There were only two options for the main course. I sat in malicious silence and smiled as he ordered the cutlet.
‘Are you here on business, Mr…?’
‘Lennox,’ I said: there had seemed no need to use anything other than my real name when checking into the hotel. ‘Yes. Kind of.’
‘What business are you in, if I may ask, Mr Lennox?’ No conversational mountain was too steep for this guy to climb.
‘Insurance,’ I lied. The most boring business in the world usually drops into the path of a conversation like a railway sleeper. Fred MacMurray’s younger brother was not deterred.
‘Really? Fascinating. General or motor?’
‘All types. I deal with claims.’ I was rescued by the arrival of his cutlet. His mouth would be fully occupied from now on.
I left untouched the gelatinous grey sludge that was served as dessert and excused myself from Powell’s company.
‘It was nice meeting you, Mr Powell.’ My joviality was genuine. I was free of him. He stood up, shook my hand and smiled his broad, Hollywood-perfect smile. I was happier than I can describe to see a particularly tenacious-looking piece of cutlet gristle jammed between two teeth.
I decided to find another bar in town for a drink rather than risk running into Powell again in the hotel’s lounge.
Unfortunately I had to run the gauntlet of Powell’s cheeriness at breakfast the next morning. I decided that the hotel proprietress – a stern, joyless, meagre woman of about fifty, who in temperament was the antithesis of Powell – must have been a secret sadist, subjecting me to the twin tortures of the hotel’s food and Powell’s company.
I dodged his inquisitiveness again and after I checked out stood outside the hotel and smoked. It was a bright sunny spring morning and I left my coat with my bag in the hotel and arranged to pick them up later when my vintage driver and taxi came to collect me again. I walked along the river and thought about Wilma Marshall. It was more than possible that she had put me off until today for a reason; that she needed to get in touch with someone. Whoever that someone was, they had a lot of the answers I was looking for.
I nodded and said hello as I passed a smartly dressed older man in a houndstooth sports jacket with a matching cap and military tie. He walked past mute, as if he hadn’t heard or seen me.
My money had been on the police having placed Wilma in the sanatorium, but the police didn’t pay witnesses to stay out of sight. Whoever it was had access to a lot of resources, including maybe a compliant doctor. As I walked I considered what she had said about the callous trick the McGahern twins played on her, taking turns to screw her and pretending always to be Tam. It seemed like a senseless, if supremely cruel, subterfuge.
Perth’s single cafe was its only concession to modern times and I called in for a coffee before heading back to the hotel to pick up my stuff and meet the taxi. The hotel proprietress was at the counter when I returned. Her shapeless black dress, flat shoes, the keychain around her waist and her unsmiling, weary demeanour made her look more like the warden of a women’s prison than a convivial hostess.
‘Your friend Mr Powell left something in his room, Mr Lennox. A pen. I have his address. He signed the register with his business address so I can send it on to that, but I thought you might be seeing him soon.’
‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken… I don’t know Mr Powell. I only met him at dinner yesterday.’
She gave me her women’s-warden look. ‘But Mr Powell said he knew you. He specifically asked to be seated with you.’
I frowned. ‘Maybe he mistook me for someone else.’
At that point my driver arrived at reception, took my bag and we headed out to the taxi.
‘See Uncle Joe’s dead,’ was the taxi driver’s opening gambit.
‘Uncle Joe?’ I was genuinely confused for a moment.
‘Uncle Joe Stalin. Stalin’s popped his clogs. It was on the Home Service this morning.’ It was the cheeriest I had seen my little driver, but that was about the extent of our conversation during our half-hour drive to the sanatorium.
‘Wait here again,’ I said as I got out in front of the vast Victorian edifice. I had the feeling I wouldn’t be long. It was a prettier, friendlier nurse on the reception desk this time, but she frowned when I asked about Wilma.
‘She’s not here,’ the nurse explained. ‘She discharged herself this morning, first thing. I’m surprised you didn’t know. You’re her cousin, you say?’ Her frown darkened with suspicion. ‘It was her brother who picked her up.’
‘Her brother? Are you sure?’
‘I was on the desk myself.’ I could see she was on the point of calling someone. She clearly didn’t believe I was Wilma’s cousin.
‘Must have got our wires crossed,’ I said and frowned as if annoyed. I thought for a moment. ‘You’re absolutely sure it was her brother… he’s a big, good-looking guy… looks a bit like a younger version of Fred MacMurray… you know, the Hollywood actor?’
The suspicion evaporated from her expression. ‘Yes, that’s him.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was late by the time I got back to Glasgow. The Perth spring had evaporated and Glasgow was shrouded in yet another smog. November through to February was the worst time for smog in the city, but it lurked ready to fall at any time of year and the temperature had taken a dramatic drop during the day.
As I had sat in the train watching the weather through the window change its mood, I had thought about Powell. I was certain he was behind the professional job done on my office and that vague feeling I’d had that someone who knew what they were doing was on my tail. Powell was a professional and I would have been unaware of his involvement if he hadn’t flagged it up for me. For some reason that I couldn’t quite figure, he had been making me aware of his presence.
After I got off the train I headed, bag and all, to the Horsehead Bar. I needed a little Glasgow cheerfulness after Perth. Big Bob came over and poured me a rye whiskey from the only bottle of non-Scotch they had in the bar.
‘How you doing?’ he asked without his usual smile.
‘Fine. What’s up?’
‘One of Willie Sneddon’s boys was in here earlier. Looking for you.’
‘Twinkletoes McBride?’
‘No, just some wee bampot they send on errands. He said to tell you that Sneddon wants to see you. If you ask me, Lennox, you play in the wrong part of the playground. I don’t know why you get involved with the likes of Willie Sneddon.’
‘It’s my business, Bob. You know that by now. Sneddon and I are old playmates.’
After I finished my whiskey I headed out to a telephone box and ’phoned Sneddon. I gave him an update on progress so far, which was less than he had expected or I had hoped to give. Mainly because, for some reason I didn’t fully understand myself, I wasn’t ready to pass on Wilma’s conviction that it had been Frankie who had been executed on the stairwell of the flat: all I had was Wilma’s intuition and it was a claim that could cause all kinds of shit to start flying. I decided to keep it under my hat for the meantime. When I had finished my report Sneddon reciprocated: he had had practically all his people trying to sniff out something to report back to me. Nothing.